lowered her gaze to the table and focussed on the intricate scrollwork on her sterling-silver fork. Even so, her eyes filled and her vision blurred. She blinked back the treacherous tears. ‘I find that hard to believe,’ she said in a low voice, even though that wasn’t quite what she meant. She found it hard to trust—trust that he wouldn’t let Sam down, that he wouldn’t let her down. Again.
Khaled was silent; it felt as if the whole world was silent, except for that faint, musical tinkling of the distant fountain.
‘You have a very low opinion of me,’ he finally said, his voice as low as hers. ‘To say such a thing and, worse, to believe it.’
Lucy’s heart twisted. She didn’t want to feel guilty, and so she wouldn’t. ‘And why shouldn’t I have a low opinion of you?’ she asked. She looked up, met Khaled’s hard gaze. ‘You left, Khaled. You left me without a word or an explanation, without even the briefest of goodbyes. Why shouldn’t I think you would do that to Sam?’
Khaled’s fingers clenched around the handle of his coffee cup, and Lucy saw his knuckles turn white. ‘Are you going to judge me on the basis of that one action, Lucy?’ he asked. ‘One decision?’
Lucy gave a short, abrupt laugh of disbelief. ‘You speak as though it was one misstep, Khaled. A mistake, or a little slip. That one decision defined everything. It defined you to me, and what you thought of me. Of our relationship.’
Khaled stilled, his fingers loosened. ‘And what did I think of you?’
She shook her head. Now that they’d begun, she felt compelled to tell the truth. She was past blushing or tears, humiliation or hurt—for the moment, at least. ‘I shouldn’t even say we had a relationship, because we obviously didn’t. We had an affair. Torrid. Tawdry. And it wasn’t worth enough for you to even let me know you were leaving the country. For good.’
Khaled rotated his cup between his long, brown fingers, and Lucy stared, strangely mesmerised by the simple action. His fingers were so familiar to her—they’d touched her, caressed her—and yet they were so strange. He was a stranger, and she wondered if he always had been.
‘I realise I hurt you,’ he murmured. ‘But that is past us now, Lucy. For our son’s sake, it has to be.’
It wasn’t an apology, not even close. Even now he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t say sorry. ‘That’s not true, Khaled. I agree I may have to put my own feelings aside, but your past behaviour has given me no reason to trust you with Sam.’
She spoke flatly, her expression and voice both bleak, and yet it was as if she’d brandished a knife. The tension that suddenly stilled the air could have been cut. With chilling precision, Khaled set his cup back down on its saucer; when he spoke his voice was just as cold as that careful action.
‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘you do not have the luxury of such feelings. And this decision, Lucy, is not yours alone to make.’
His words trickled icily into her consciousness, realisation pooling with dread in her stomach.
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘I’m stating facts. If the DNA test reveals what I believe it shall, Sam is as much my son as yours, and I have as much right to his time and attention as you do. And,’ Khaled continued, his voice soft, chilling, ‘I think you’ll find I have far more resources than you do to see I am granted custody of my own child.’
Lucy’s vision swam. She tasted bile in her throat, on her tongue, and forced it down. She blinked, tried to focus, to think, but all she could hear or feel was Khaled’s threat echoing sickly through her head and heart.
Resources. Custody. He was talking about legal action.
Lucy rose unsteadily to her feet. With a few shaky steps she made it to the balcony, her fingers curling around the railing as she took several deep breaths of fragrant air.
If Prince Khaled el Farrar of Biryal went against her in a custody battle, Lucy was sure she’d lose. At best, she’d gain partial custody, or perhaps only visiting rights.
She choked back a gasp of horror, of terror, and heard Khaled rise from the table behind her. She felt his hand solid and firm on her shoulder and managed to choke out, ‘Don’t touch me.’
After a moment, he removed his hand; her shoulder burned. ‘Lucy,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t want to threaten you. I don’t know what kind of man you think I am—’ He broke off, sighing wearily. ‘No, I do know, and it seems it is a virtual monster—unfeeling, cruel.’
‘You aren’t giving me many reasons to believe otherwise,’ Lucy retorted.
‘And what recourse have you given me?’ he countered. ‘You came to Biryal, it seems, with the specific purpose of finding me, telling me about our child. Yet now you act as if I have hunted you down and forced the information from you! Why did you tell me, if you didn’t want anything from me? You could have kept the information to yourself.’ His voice rang with bitterness. ‘You’ve managed to do that for nearly four years.’
‘I didn’t think you’d want him!’ The words were ripped from her lungs, her heart. She felt tears crowd her eyes again and dashed them away angrily. ‘Why should I think you would? You walked away from me quickly enough.’
‘Sam is my child.’
‘As opposed to just your lover.’ She nodded with a mechanical jerking of her head. ‘Yes, I understand. Clearly I rated myself too highly.’
‘If you thought you could tell me I had a child and expect no repercussions at all, then you were naïve,’ Khaled told her brusquely. ‘A fool.’
‘Yes, I realise that now,’ Lucy replied dully. She felt weary, all the fight gone out of her, leaving her with nothing but an aching, accepting despair. ‘I was always a fool when it came to you,’ she added with a bleak, humourless smile. She moved back to the table and sat down. She took a sip of coffee. It was cold.
Khaled leaned against the balcony, watching her with cool speculation. Lucy put her coffee cup down and forced herself to continue. ‘I don’t have much experience of fathers,’ she said, her voice flat and unemotional even though her heart was twisting painfully. ‘My own divorced my mother when I was six, and the last time I saw him was when I was nine.’ She had a sudden vision of his quick, easy smile, his promise that he’d see her soon—and then the waiting. So much waiting, followed by a deep, echoing despair when he hadn’t come.
She pushed the memory away, managing a watery smile as she looked up at Khaled; his expression did not change. ‘If I indulge myself in a bit of pop psychology, I suppose I could say I thought you’d be just like him. He left my mother without a backward glance, and he had no interest or time for me either.’
Khaled was silent for a long moment, and Lucy looked away. ‘I’m sorry for that,’ he finally said. ‘But I am not your father, and I have no intention of walking away from Sam now that I know about him. I will be in his life, Lucy, and, the more we can work together to love and support him, the happier I believe we will all be.’
Lucy nodded; her heart still felt leaden. She supposed she should be grateful for Khaled’s reasoned response. Despite the way he’d treated her, she believed now that he wouldn’t let Sam down. She had no
